Influence of Index Properties in Swelling Pressure of Clay

Expansive soils exhibit significant volume changes with variations in moisture content. Foundations constructed on these soils are subjected to considerable damage due to swelling. Determination of swelling characteristics is a prerequisite for safe and economic design of structures resting on expansive soils. The major difficulties associated with the determination of Swell characteristics of soil are the difficulty in obtaining Undisturbed samples and most of the methods are rather expensive, time consuming and involve complicated test procedures. On the other hand, tests to determine index properties are quite simple and less expensive. The purpose of this study to establish correlation for the quick prediction of swell pressure of clay from the results of index properties. In this study, an attempt is made to correlate swell pressure with plasticity index and clay content. Swell Pressure tests in Constant Volume Method are performed on statically compacted 20 soil samples collected within Coimbatore Corporation limit. A correlation for obtaining Swell pressure in kN/m 2 is derived.